Investigators from Oakland and other agencies looking into allegations of corruption in the office of ousted City Administrator Deborah Edgerly should start in 2004, her first year in office, former city employees say.

The alleged improprieties and nepotism go back four years, to soon after then-Mayor Jerry Brown permanently appointed Edgerly to the city administrator's position.

While suspicions of nepotism have fed the rumor mill for years, a criminal investigation into Edgerly's actions surrounding a police investigation that netted 56 alleged associates of a violent street gang has renewed interest in her practices as the city's top administrator.

The accounts provided by several former employees paint a picture of a city administrator's office run amok, rewarding friends and family of the bosses with little concern for appearances or process.

In a revealing twist, the hiring of a new manager for the city's equal employment opportunity office in 2004 illustrated just how far the city administrator's office could go to influence the hiring process.

Victor Martinez, a veteran director of BART's equal employment office, was the leading candidate for the City Hall job. He scored the highest among the four top candidates on the civil service test and he was selected as the top choice from a three-person panel of interviewers that included Bill Noland, director of the finance and management division.

Noland and the other panelists were angered by Assistant City Administrator Cheryl Thompson's refusal to hire Martinez but she left the post vacant for months before hiring Don Jeffries, a friend.

Jeffries, whose score was the lowest among the four candidates, still holds the position.

Martinez still remembers an interview with Thompson in November 2004.

"The panel interview process itself was clean, but the second step, in a one-on-one interview with Thompson, I thought I'd done well," said Martinez. "She asked why I wanted to leave BART, and I said I didn't see eye to eye with my boss. She asked if he was black, I said he was and she abruptly ended the interview.

Given the loss of public trust in the city's government, the Oakland City Council is trying to hastily approve a nepotism ordinance to try to close the loopholes that have provided a wide berth for officials to skirt the city's legally mandated civil service process.

On Monday, the council met in closed session to hear details on the Edgerly case from Mayor Ron Dellums and Police Chief Wayne Tucker, who had met with the administrator last week but had not briefed the eight-member council.

Dellums, under pressure last week to oust Edgerly, put her on paid leave Friday until her retirement date of July 31. His decision came three days after Dellums and Edgerly held a brief news conference to announce that she would continue working at City Hall until her retirement.

"All I can say publicly is that the information that was provided (in the closed session) would have caused me to immediately place her on an administrative leave and launch an investigation - not wait 10 days to do it," said Council President Ignacio De La Fuente, clearly disappointed with the mayor's actions.

Edgerly sent a letter Monday to city officials, including selected members of the council, demanding that she be reinstated to her position, according to two city officials who saw the letter.

In the letter, she also asked that she extend her retirement until the end of the year.

Unfortunately, the council's reform efforts are like to closing the gate after the horse has left the barn. It's too late for that now.

The best thing the council can do is demand an outside investigation and start developing sound public policy - at a safe distance from the mayor's office.

Beyond his blind loyalists, and even they are few and far between, Dellums no longer holds the political center of this city.

There is a giant void of leadership that only an elected official can fill, and there are certainly mayoral hopefuls there. Someone on the City Council, or the council as a whole, must step up to fill it. How long will you defer to a do-nothing mayor while residents suffer from governmental negligence?

There are easily two years of work ahead to clean house and reform an ailing institution, more than enough to launch a new political directive that can be carried out by the council and endorsed by the mayor.

Reduce Dellums' role in government to largely ceremonial, let him go where he wants, cut ribbons, launch summits, whatever. This city has a lot of work to do, and he's not going to be able to help. So let's get on with it.